Preface: Witchhunt does not accommodate bastard modding. No false or misleading information should ever presented in-game to players, nor should any details about the rules or mechanics be withheld.​

Overview

Witchhunt is a game in which two factions each seek to control their town by killing off the other: The Villagers and the Witches. There are fewer members of the Witch team, but their identities are secret. Whichever team successfully kills all of their opponents wins.

The game continuously marches through a daily cycle split into two phases: day and night. The length of each game’s cycle can vary; a real life game might take 10 minutes for each day and night, while a forum game might take a full week. Each phase has an announced deadline, at which point the game automatically transitions to the next phase.

During night, players may not make public discussion and any actions taken are private from other living players. Each night, the Coven of Witches selects a target to kill.

This kill is announced at the start of the next day. During day, living players may make open discussion and decide on a target of their own to hang. Any living player may vote for any other living player, and a true majority (more than half) is required to hang.

During this discussion, it may prove important to conceal information or lie. There is no restriction to what players can say or claim! Lies are normally weapons of the Witch team, but anyone can say anything in pursuit of their team’s victory.

Note that unlike some other games, there is no "card flip" (announcement of the player's identity) on death! Which team they were working for remains a mystery!

The game ends when one side has completely eliminated the other, or when this is inevitable. (For example, Witches typically win when at least half the remaining players are Witches, because it is then impossible for Villagers to out-vote and hang them.)

Player Assignments (Character and Type)

Each player is given two assignments: a unique character, and a non-unique type.

Unique characters provide every player with a special, unique ability of some sort. These abilities may be offensive or defensive, mechanical or informational. Powers granted by your character only apply while you are alive.

Player type is separate from character, and determines what team the player is on.

The Witches are also given an extra character at the start of the game - this is to allow the Witches to more easily play around the Villager's actions. Note that each Witch may only have one character - the leftover character is effectively 'dead'.

Village Player Types:

Villager - This is the most common player type. Villagers are simply trying to hunt down the Witches and use their character to help the Village do so.

Holy Villager - The most powerful characters are considered “holy” and have gold cards. These characters are reserved for the Holy Villagers, and cannot be any other player type.
(Holy Villagers have no other unique function besides getting a reserved character that is always Village aligned.)

Witch Player Types:

Witch - Witches start in the Coven. They know each other from the start of the game, and vote as a group in the Witch Coven each night to kill a target. They may also communicate with each other at all times.

Remember: Holy characters aside, any characters can be any player type - Villager or Witch!​

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Important Information

The Characters

Holy
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Priest - Each night, you may check if a target is in the Witch Coven.

Acolyte - At the start of the game, you learn who has the Priest character.

Information
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Gravedigger - At the start of each night, you learn the cards of anyone who died that day.

Apprentice - At the start of the game, you may select Judge or Gravedigger. You will learn who has that
character, and take over their duties if they die.

Oracle - At the start of the game, you learn the identity of a random Village Peasant.

Watchman - At the end of the first night, you learn the identity of a random Village Peasant who did not wake up during the night.

Inquisitor - Each night, you may check a target's character category (Holy, offense, defense or information)

Peeping Tom - Once per game, you may observe the private actions of any non-holy character. If that character is dead, you may make decisions in their place.

Fortune Teller - At the start of the game, select a character. You be informed if the player with that character dies during the night.

Spiritualist - Once per game during any day (before time is up), you may reveal this card and name any dead player. You will privately learn that player's cards.

Defense
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Survivalist - You start the game with an extra life.

Gambler - At the start of the game, pick even or odd. On those nights (but not days), you are protected from a kill.

Fanatic - When the Priest checks you, you are secretly notified and gain an extra life.

Benevolent Old Dame - Once per game when your death is announced, you may give a target other than yourself an extra life.

Nurse - Once per game during any day, you may reveal this card and name any non-holy character. If that character is still alive, they gain an extra life.

Emissary - The first three days and nights, you enjoy unlimited protection from all hangings and night kills.

Offense
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Judge - At the end of any day the players fail to select a target to hang, you may privately decide yourself. This ignores extra lives.

Hunter - The first time a player survives being killed, you may kill a target the following night.

Dirty Old Bastard - Once per game when your death is announced, you may kill a target.

Loose Cannon - During any day (before time is up), you may reveal this card. Sacrifice yourself to end the day and personally decide who to hang.

Assassin - Once per game during any day (before time is up), you may reveal this card and guess the character of a target. If correct, the target is killed. If incorrect, you are killed.

Bomber - At the start of the game, you may select a target to receive the Bomb. Once per game at night, you may choose to Detonate the bomb. At the start of the next day, it is removed from the game and the player holding it is killed.

Note that the number of roles will depend on the number of signups.

The Witches

In addition to their roles, Witches have a few extra tricks that they can use during the game.

The last living member of the Witch team may kill up to two different targets each night.

Once per game, Witches may make an Illusion Kill instead of or in addition to their usual kill(s). The target of an Illusion Kill always survives, so use this later in the game to confuse the town!

Dead Players

Dead players may no longer communicate or vote with living players. They also may no longer utilize their character abilities. Dead players may communicate with each other freely, and watch the game unfold.
However, dead players are NOT eliminated from the game! Instead they continue to serve their side as an Angel or Demon.

Please note that while dead, players observe all actions made, or information gained by all players. For example, at the end of a typical night, dead players might learn

1. The players in the coven & their kill target.
2. The priest and his check target.
3. That the fanatic was checked and now has an extra life.

If there are only dead players from a single group (Angels or Demons), then only that group will learn the info for that phase.

Angels and Demons

All dead Villagers are Angels and all dead Witches are Demons.

Angels may vote as a group to protect any player from the Coven that night. The chosen player will be protected against the Coven kill, but not any other kill sources (such as the Hunter).

Each night, the Demons may pick two targets to Haunt. This effects both the Priest and the Angels - if the Priest checks either Haunted player that night, he will receive the result for the other instead! Secondly, if the Angels protect either of the two Haunted players, they may never protect that target again, further, Angels may only protect a Haunted player if there are more Angels than Demons.

In other words, the Angels can stand in the Witches' way, but the Demons can stand in the Angels' way; all in layers of dares and bluffs!

Note that in order for this to flow smoothly, Demons must choose who they wish to Haunt by the halfway point each night, so that Angels may react accordingly.

Additionally, once per game, the Angels may protect two targets.

QUESTIONS
How does protection work exactly?

Protection blocks a single kill that occurs at night. Further, Protection stacks, so if you have two sources of protection (say you are the Gambler and Angels target you), it would take three kills in one night to kill you.

Also note that all kill attempts are made public, so if someone were to survive one kill, but die to a second that would be revealed upon day start. Similarly if someone is killed twice in the same night, that would be shown at the start of day.
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When does the DOB / BOD go off?

All deaths are announced during DAY, so the DOB / BOD kill or +life always occur during day.
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How are night actions resolved?

First, Demons choose their Haunt targets, then all non kill actions are resolved, then all kills are resolved. This means that nothing is interrupted or otherwise impeded by the target or recipient of an action being killed in the night.
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Voting and Deadlines

Roles that reveal their card for an effect during the day (such as Nurse or Assassin) extend the day by 24 hours, at the moderators discretion. This is to stop degenerate strategies such as 'use your power immediately before day end to prevent a reaction'.

During the day, living players may post in this thread and vote to lynch a target. Please make your votes bold, red and on a separate line.

You may change votes at any time during the day.

At the end of the day's deadline, if a player has a majority of votes, that player is lynched. If no player has a majority, or a majority of players vote to no lynch, the decision defers to the Judge. The Judge's identity remains private, and the result is announced. If the Judge is dead or declines Judgment, no one is lynched.

The number of votes that constitute a majority will be clearly posted at the start of each day.

Ending the day early requires an unanimous-minus-one vote count.

Votals will be posted with alarming irregularity.

Queued Actions

Roles that make immediate game decision at the start or end of a phase (such as Judge, DOB, BOD) need to have their desired action queued with the moderator - this is to allow the game to run smoothly, as (for example) needing to wait for the Judge to check-in and decide who to lynch after a No-Lynch day could take many hours.

Additionally, players may have to be away from a computer when they would desire to make critical game decisions. Players can work with the moderator in advance to easily address these circumstances.

If you are AFK and want to queue an action related to your role, post it in your QT. (In <b>bold</b>, using HTML tags) You cannot queue votes except in extraordinary cases.

Behavior Rules

These rules help keep the game fun for everyone. Based on the seriousness of the violation, breaking these rules may result in a warning, in-place mod-kill, forced-lynch mod-kill, team forfeit, and/or a ban from participating in future game.

1. No Duplicate Account
You cannot register for the game under multiple accounts. This is the most serious violation possible.

2. No Unauthorized Communications
Players may only communicate with other players using methods specifically allowed by the moderator, such as designated Quicktopics or the game thread. Take care when talking to non-players about the game - if they share your private information with another player, that is a rules violation on you regardless of your intent.

3. No Encryption
Encryption is using a specific key to conceal information in text (which may or may not appear to conceal a hidden message), and communicating that key or part of it (including decryption instructions) to other players. (Private or public, before or after) Avoid explicitly declaring unique and unusual significance to non-content such as character ordering, post counts, or voting patterns. Anything that goes beyond irony and is a deliberate attempt to communicate is off-limits.

4. No Private Moderator Quoting
The moderator will try to make all communications in the public discussion, privately according to the publicly available script, or privately with yes or no responses. However, unforeseen circumstances do occur, so do not quote or otherwise acknowledge these private messages to other players, if they occur.

5. No Forum Abuse (No Edits, No Likes)
This forum has certain features that are undesireable for a smooth game, that we require players to ignore. Do not edit your posts. Do not "thumbs-up" posts. Do not "like" then "unlike" posts. Do not stalk the online forum status of players that have it enabled on their profile.

6. No Text Dumping
Do not post (in the public discussion or a QT) non-public material that is copied verbatim from another player, or written yourself more than 2 full game cycles ago. Additionally, do not copy timestamps.

7. No Personal Attacks
Above all, don't be a giant douchecanoe. Don't be a little douchecanoe. Don't be any size of douchecanoe.

Day 1 will be five days long with all subsequent Days being three days long. Nights will be 24 hours. The witches will have a 24 hour pregame to go over their roles, during which there will be no posting in the main thread. Flavor will be whatever I feel like.

Signups will be open for one week from this post or until I arbitrarily decide to close them.